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Staffers – In the Pigeonhole

1.19.21 by Matty McPherson

I’ll admit I have a nasty habit of leaving the punk tapes on my racks. And I apologize! Because there are a lot of little strange nuggets passing through, in those black and white cases. Staffers’ In the Pigeonhole is one such that kinda fell through the crevices throughout the last three months. It’s a shame because for 26 rambunctious minutes, Staffers treat punk like it is a rowdy night at the local high school bar where they just restored the mechanical bull.

Now you might think it a little too hyperbolic or sketchy. No, not at all! DC-implant Ryan McKeever has a knack for the “loud post-punk pop” sound synonymous with Parkay Quarts. His history opening for like minded fellows Bodega, Lithics, and Media Jeweler suggest a kinship for taking the wry sound and squeezing out pop ditties and shanties. And his lyrics are equally brimming hazed dejections on presiding in this perpetual hell world. Yet, nine tracks, it never feels like it’s rushing, just brimming with natural flourishes and one-ups.

For In the Pigeonhole, McKeever is aided by like- minded pedal steelers, violinists, and saxophonists. Staffers have a cathartic kind of feel to their tunes. His sing-speak maintains this shambolic nature that pushes the sound further into folksy bar rock. Aided by partner in crime, Anna McClellan, their harmonies go above yelling into the void, begging you to join in the moment on “Though I Could Do It”. Other times, it is found through Colin Duckworth’s pedal steel action that introduces a country twang as clean as a keg pour with a two-finger head (for the ipa heads at home). 

On the standout last track, “Just Another Tuesday”, both the harmonies and twang meet in unison for a sublime “last call” this side of the Moss Cantina. Yeah, another Tuesday has been wasted, along with another year. But, that’s just the cycle of how things go. If anything, Staffers seem to know that, and their nice cut of post-punk pop to reflect keeps things warm as the nights stay chilled.

Edition of 200 available here and here

Hali Palombo – Cylinder Loops

1.14.21 by Matty McPherson

Last year, Nate Cross, the labelbossman behind Astral Spirits, pivoted Astral Editions into the cassette game. In an email interview last spring, he told me he was hoping Astral Editions would become a home for outsider and fringe tunes not strictly relegated to jazz. The inaugural tape Voice Games, a collaboration between Ka Baird and x was practically a game of telephone gone towards its most phonetic and surrealist. A novel split from the typical wheelhouse of Astral Spirits, that implied a greater freedom in Astral Edition’s sonic trajectory.

Hali Palombo’s Cylinder Loops is the first release of 2021 on Astral Editions and upon first glance it may look like a minor one: 12 loops clocking in at 18 minutes. Yet, I’ve been sitting with the loops for a month now and it might be the next keystone release for defining the label’s sound. 

Palombo’s 2019 and 2020 works have been tinkering with shortwave radio ghosts and fragments; Cherry Ripe practically summons dispatches from the bomb shelters of the atomic era. Sometimes mournful or monolithic, yet with an undercurrent of warmth and bittersweetness to this era. On Cylinder Loops, Palombo takes a dozen fragments (courtesy of UCSB’s Cylinder Archive), highlighting the ghosts in those auditory fragments. Palombo’s loops will be quite familiar should you have a sweet tooth for Lelyand Kirby and Ghost Box (there lies a hauntology tag at the bottom of its bandcamp page).

The cylinder loops have a wicked sense of space they conjure up. Demented carnivals (Loop 8), funeral liturgy (Loop 4), or flickering nitrate print (Loop 3) all provide images of a pre-WWI society on the fringe of a modernity it will soon be crushed under. Palombo then bends that sense of temporality; often pushing the sounds of these loops towards dispatches from futures akin to the dream worlds of Tim Hecker’s Harmony in Ultraviolet (Loop 6/9). The entire affair is precise, not a moment wasted. As a result, it lends itself both to trips across the midwest as much as a rainy morning lost in a foggy haze. You’ll best want to pick this one up before it fades away.

First pressing of 200 with artwork by Tiny Little Hammers available here

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New Batch – Unifactor

1.4.21 by Matty McPherson

In between going through some 2020 tapes, I guess it was time to ring 2021 in with something.. NEW!

Unifactor Tapes, the wildly successful barnburning Bandcamp label, has announced yet another trio of delicious tapes (with art by Nathan Bowers-who may have also done the art for a Christmas Emeralds tape…) slated for later this month. Though I guess Jason Gercyz didn’t get the memo about numbering his batches. As far as I know, it goes 11, 12, 14 – NOT 11, 12, [REDACTED, number Too Scary]*.

This trio is stacked with those BPMs and at least two players connected to Unifactor already:

Machine Listener is Matthew Gallagher (whose art you may recall from Unifactor’s Batch #11) and their Machine Listener Project is about to go further into 90’s Warp IDM with Headfooter (available at 90% off non-Warp 90’s tape prices!). If you’ve loved Machine Listener’s HausMo zones, then the self-titled single already plays like a demented game of capture the flag from the Jet Set Radio Future sequel that never was.

Spednar is Kevin Bednar (the mastering person for {arsonist}’s Batch #11 release as well) and his Coniunctio promises a “union between amelodic percussion experiments and time-averse harmonic landscapes”. Leading single “eh o el” approaches a drum n’ bass deconstruction for those who like to chill at the rave. 

Finally, local Cleveland, OH legend, Noah Anthony, joins the Unifactor Tapes team with his Deuce Avenue moniker for Perennial Fire and Life. Could his “synth disintegration” and “bass rushes” might be the tape that wins a new fandom from 100% Silk? Regardless, “Jealously” is a delicious slice of light dancery.

In fact, I’m realizing this is maybe Unifactor Tape’s danciest batch in ages! I guess in between bringing free jazz to the Carpark roster, Jason Gercyz wants to dance. Just don’t number it after a bad number next time Jason, okay?!

Pick from yr faves or pre-order in a batch! Either way, do it soon before they make one of those gosh darned lists and sell out!

*batch numbering 11, 12, 12a, 14 are also accepted

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Michael Potter – Rain Song & Trance Music

12.31.20 by Matty McPherson

Michael Potter’s Athens, GA based Garden Portal label might have less than a baker’s dozen tapes under its belt, but it should not distract from its distinctly naturalistic blend of psychedelia. There’s been a fascinating continuation of the “new weird south”, yet Potter’s work deserves greater emphasis than provided by the blanket term. “Cosmic Americana” better convey where his curatorial instincts have carried the Garden Portal label, while “Ambient Primitive” convey the sonic endeavors Potter and his ever shifting roster have been chasing going back to 2007 (if not longer!). On Rain Song and Trance Music (released under Michael Potter and The Electric Nature), Potter tapped into the power of this trance, spinning campfire songs towards astral trajectories.

Last year’s sold out Rain Song (on Already Dead) was akin to the long stretching John Fahey odysseys. Over 21 minutes, Potter dabbles in Louisville twang with a backing band (Web Hughes on bass and Steven Ledbetter on Drums), taking this twang on a moonlight journey down river, approaching hints of a “Sun Drugs” type ethereality. As pieces of sweeping cosmia go, there is not an element out of place-Hughes bass sounds like river creatures and fauna and Ledbetter’s drums point to the stars. It is literally music that swoons, demanding a dance (or pagan sacrifice of your choosing) for a cloud goddess. And it even gives a lil’ rain effect at the end to let you know it worked! The hissy live nuggets on side B further explore and embrace this kind of jam, akin to a back swamp dive bar beamed straight from the floorboards under your feet.

Now, at this point I would be inclined to state that Potter is a wizard, but after July’s Trance Music, he is a bonafide alchemist. It was here where “Cosmic Americana” seemed to achieve a transcendent peak. Rain Song is a necessary framework, as the former’s acoustic framework becomes warped by the latter’s “early Minimalist, Theatre of Eternal Music-style never-ending ur-drone, the New Zealand tradition of prolonged sturm und drang perfected by The Dead C, and modern ambient electronic synthesis and processing”. Taken as a referential flowchart across the 75 minutes of asynchronous, live recorded acoustics, the results are cosmic benders. Potter’s ingenuity is that he can start with these simple melodies that turn into echoed chasms that pull you deeper and deeper towards the abyss (Trance I). Or, he can repeat a melody until it turns into its own idiosyncratic, stuttering rain dance (Trance III). Deep listening rewards the keen ear, but just listening out on the porch over the morning coffee enacts its own blend of deep jitters (Trance IV’s usage of electronic processing is particularly mind shifting).

What more is there to say? There’s still a handful of copies left of this juicy blend of “Ambient Primitive”, even bundled alongside For a Better Tomorrow. Turn your Saturday morning into a 75 minute worship service!

A mixed edition of 75 white shell and 30 clear shell cassettes with professionally printed, natural cardstock j-cards. Available here and here.

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Planning for Burial – Below the House [PHASE III]

12.4.20 by Matty McPherson

Is Planning for Burial going Caretaker on our ass? No, but those tik-tok teens inadvertently discovering the Caretaker and turning it into a six hour challenge is a huge achievement in the “year of internal music discovery 2k20”. But also, Caretaker doesn’t do tapes, so why does Tabs Out care?! Meanwhile, this entire time since 2k17, Thom Wasluck’s long running blackened slowcore project within the Flenser Label Universe (FLU) has been toying with tape denigration of his last album, Below the House, to degrees that would face melt the average tik-tok teen.

Below the House is the kind of slowcore album that took roots from both death metal and blackgaze, while still retaining an innate instinct of Codeine’s slow n’ steady self-immolation. It balances melody with brutal stompage and unrelenting isolation. It was made to rot and turn itself inside out into a degraded memory. And Walsluck had done that, casting Below the House into a terminal, long form analysis of noise degradation with each passing reissue.

Where in Phase I, Wasluck was just simply planning his tape for a winter hibernation burial and letting it melt in summer, Phase II expanded on this, taking a Phase I copy with a brutal beating and shock surgery before suffering the worst fate, “played over and over in a cheap tape deck”. Phase III has emphasized warping the tape by playing it at different speeds for months. It also is the first time that Wasluck opted to add additional instrumentation, doing so across a period of 10 months. 

But don’t expect that the album has suddenly found a new clarity. We’re only further in the storm that Phase I originally crashed into. Tracks are now akin to faceless ambient dirges that sound like a CIA helicopter hovering over your house or a misbegotten memory from that last underground basement show. This tape is gloriously fucked and will randomly slip out at times; it is caught in a perpetual brain fog from a hangover. Yet, there still radiates a crevice of clarity. The new instrumentation occasionally acts as a roadmarker and completely prevents the tape from going into full headass degradation. Sometimes, you feel like you are floating high above, hitting a serene spot beyond cohesion.

In fact, the tape is fantastically listenable and packaged to perfection. So, saddle up next to a roaring fire, knock yourself out with that special liquor you’ve saved, and savor a long night of solace with Below the House.

Sold Out at Planning for Burial’s Site although a few more may become available soon + Phase IV is in planning stages-whatever is to come of it, whenever. So, add it to your calendar to watch for!